The Christian evangelical message

The Christian evangelical gospel reached Africa before it reached other continents such as America, the Far East, and Australia, among others. The northern sections of the continent, however, received it 900 years before the rest of the continent. Despite active gospel preaching for hundreds of years, research has indicated that missionaries’ labor had only grown to 10% by the end of 1900. In the twentieth century, 60% of the African people joined Christianity, and Christianity is the fastest growing religion in Africa to this day. This paper discusses the early Christians in Africa, missionary activity, the obstacles missionaries confront, and the reasons influencing Africa’s growth.First Christians in Africa

Back in Jerusalem and Gaza, it is believed that the first person to be baptized by Philip on the road was an African from Ethiopia who later returned to his country and established the early Christian church in Africa. The church underwent a growth during the period when some missionaries went in the area and in no time, the Ethiopian region became a predominantly kingdom of Christians. The first church was short lived because of the Islam expansion in the northern Africa. The Muslim victimized the areas populated by the Christians making people convert to Islam to the extent that the Ethiopian church disappeared (Greenhalgh).

Egypt

Apostle Mark was the first known missionary to Africa, and he founded the early church in Alexandria, Egypt in 65 AD. Jews and Greeks were the first members of the church, but with time, Egyptians converted to Christians. By 300 AC, there were about 250 congregations in North Africa which later split from Eastern Church to Coptic Church. Christianity was discouraged by the Roman emperor who persecuted Christians making many of them join smaller communities which had settled in the desert. The small groups of Christians were close-knit together and highly committed to the religion even though they lived in total exclusion leading to the formation of the monasteries. In Egypt, Christianity vanished but later reversed in the year 641 AC due the end of the persecutions. Even today, only 11.5% of the country’s population of 70 million are Christians belonging to the Coptic Church the rest being Muslims (Montero).

Abyssinia

Abyssinia is the present modern Ethiopia and the first person who brought the Gospel was Ferments. He later moved to India in the fourth century where he was enslaved in the regime of King Axiom, the then ruler of Abyssinia. It is during his slavery that he taught the gospel of Christ to the Abyssinians and was later released and permitted to begin a church where he started as a pastor but then became a bishop in the year 365 AC. Despite the conquests by the Muslims to destroy the church in Abyssinia, it remained relatively stable, and by this, it was different from other churches planted in Africa. The results of the unity of this church can be seen even in the present where more than 65% of the Ethiopian population are Christians (Stevenson).

The missionary work

Christianity continued to grow in Europe, northern part of Africa and also the eastern region. However, the rest of Africa practiced traditional religion for many hundreds of years and this continued until the development of the shipping and exploratory voyages to discover new worlds. It is by then when the church efforts to reach the neglected parts of the African continent mattered (Montero). Between the years 1421-1445, Prince Henry the navigator discovered ten voyages while attempting to find another route to India. Within the same timeline, other Portuguese navigators contacted other tribes along the coastal region of West Africa. Following this discovery, the Pope in Rome appointed a missionary team to promote missionary work in West Africa in the year 1462 (Greenhalgh).

Missionaries’ effort in the West Africa was considered a success in the year 1492 when Manikongo king of Bakongo among many of his kingdom converted to Christianity. Alphonso being his successor also continued to promote Christianity in the region, and many of the people studied priesthood and governance in Portugal. Bakongo is the present day Congo and Northern Angola. However, Christianity vanished in the area because of the practice of the Portuguese buying slaves from the area, and by 1700, Christian completely disappeared. Later in 1750, Thomas Thompson from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in England introduced protestant missionary on the west coast of Africa. He moved to the coastal regions of Ghana, but his work was short lived after which he returned to his home country due to ill health four years later. With him, Thomas Thompson carried one of his coverts, Philip Quaque to further his studies which later returned to carry on missionary works in the West Africa after being the first African Anglican church preacher (Bruner).

Da Silveira was the first missionary to land in the East Africa in the coastal region of the present day Mozambique in the year 1560. He was killed by the king of Monomotapa after Muslims cheated that he was a bright witchdoctor who wanted to curse him by Baptism. Da Silveira steps were followed by other missionaries who baptized the king of Monomotapa in the year 1652. Following his baptism, there were no any other significant works of apostles since they left within no time (Stevenson). During 1500-1700, various Portuguese missionary groups went to the coastal region of East Africa present-day Kenya, but their efforts were not successful. Until the mid-1700 when the Roman Catholic Church’s’ work on the east coast came to a halt.

The church and missions in Africa today

According to Bruner, The African Christian church enjoys the expansion and growth of unprecedented in the over two thousand years of history of Christianity. Research has shown that by 1900 there were over eight million Christians in Africa which was 10% of the entire people. Over a century, the number increased drastically and by the year 2002, close to 351 million people who are approximately 48% of the African population with 65% of the people in the south of Sahara consider themselves as Christians. All these Christians are contained in the 15000 different denominations and groups with a distribution of 15% Roman Catholic, 13% -Protestant, 10%-independent, 4% Anglican and 6% Orthodox Christians. However, even with all these efforts, 1300 tribes in Africa especially living in the northern Africa have never heard of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. More than 17500 Christian missionaries are currently working to rectify the situation in Africa of which 620 different missionary organizations are represented.

Challenges faced by missionaries in Africa

These Christian missionaries were faced with various problems which affected their activities at times. A problem of the language barrier was a significant challenge to missionaries of all walks of life. Africa had a multiplicity of languages, therefore, making it difficult for communication between them and the missionaries. Another problem was the influence of Islam since Arabs were the first group to arrive on the coast and interior of most African parts. This made it difficult for African people to adopt Christianity from the deep-rooted Islam religion (Parker).

Another problem was the tropical diseases like malaria, smallpox among others which took the lives of missionary making their progress difficult in various parts. Geographical barriers was another challenge whereby hilly areas, rivers, lakes, and forests hindered their movement (Parker). In connection to that, poor transport was another hindrance to missionary activities in East Africa due to poor road networks within the African continent. Other problems included the hostile tribes, the presence of wild animals, lack of supplies like money, accommodation, drug, etc. they also faced the challenge of the massive contradiction and rivals between European missionaries and traditional religions of Africans.

Works Cited

Bruner, Jason. Living Salvation in the East African Revival in Uganda. Vol. 75. Boydell & Brewer, 2017

Greenhalgh, Michael. “Travelers’ Accounts of Roman Statuary in the Near East and North Africa.” The Afterlife of Greek and Roman Sculpture: Late Antique Responses and Practices (2016): 330

Montero, Roman A. All Things in Common: The Economic Practices of the Early Christians. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2017

Parker, Charles H. “Languages of Salvation: Translating Christianity in the Global Reformation1.” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte-Archive for Reformation History 108.1 (2017): 202-211

Stevenson, Russell. “The Prophetess: Rebecca Mould and Interrogating Authority in Postcolonial Ghana.” (2017)